The basic design of both manual and automatic food slicers has proven to be quite effective and durable throughout the years. Although various important improvements have been made to such slicers, the overall design has not changed very much particularly with regard to the overall cleanliness, ergonomics, or ease of operation.
Today, food slicers are utilized to slice a number of food products such as meats, cheeses and the like in a variety of environments such as delicatessens, supermarkets, and restaurants to name a few. Such food slicers need to be quite durable since they tend to be used for many hours during a day by many different individuals while providing the desired performance and cleanliness.
Additionally, food slicers need to be designed to allow adaptability since they need to handle a variety of products of different shapes, sizes, and textures while readily providing slices of different thicknesses of the product being sliced. The speed at which a particular product is moved across the cutting blade can also vary on automatic food slicers to improve productivity.
Three major components of a food slicer typically are a rotating blade, a food product table for holding food product to be sliced that moves back and forth across the cutting blade, and an adjustable gage plate that moves with respect to the blade to provide a slice thickness gap therebetween corresponding to the thickness of the desired slice. To enable easier cleaning of a food slicer, the product table can be designed to be removable from the food slicer. Mechanical or electromechanical methods are provided to only enable removal of the product table when both the product table and gage plate are in a particular position with respect to the blade.